Take it away, Lawrence.

[instrumental music plays] Hello.

My name is Laurence Bergreen, and I've written a book about Christopher Columbus, Columbus: The Four Voyages.

Of all the books I've written, I think this has been the most challenging and the most controversial because, uh, Columbus' reputation has been changing almost by the month.

He's a figure that we all know about, and he's been devalued almost beyond recognition, torn down from statues, discredited over and over as if it were the first time.

But as I discovered, the criticism of Columbus, intense criticism, was there almost at the beginning.

It seems to get rediscovered with each generation.

Let's pick up where we last left off.

His father

was a In other words, a singer of sacred music in a synagogue.

Here again is Irving Berlin biographer Lawrence Burgreen.

But in the New World, his father had a difficult time finding work like that that paid and became a kosher butcher.

He was one of five children, Irving Berlin.

He grew up on the Lower East Side of New York City in a tenement.

His father died when he was young, and so from the time he was a teenager, because nobody was able to provide for the family, Berlin grew up on the streets.

Can you talk about how he worked?

The colors of the rainbow So pretty in the sky Are also on the faces And I think to myself.

To be able to say, after all he had been through, that it's a wonderful world, was really an extraordinary affirmation.

You know, as I encountered Louis, or talked to people about Louis, you didn't get a range of opinions.

You got one.

Louis was just a fantastic character.

I was skeptical to begin with, but he realized that he had this spirit that I'm talking about, which was really contagious.

I don't know of anybody who doesn't love Louis.

And that was my kicks, you know, trying to blow that cat out of the wagon there.